“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you this morning.”

October 3, 2011

In early 2007 I was on a traveling singing group. There were eight of us on a team, and the team members were switched every year. We were invited to stay the evening at the house of a previous member named Drew. Drew wasn’t home, so it was his mom, his sister and his brother who hosted us.

Now we’d all known that Drew’s dad died about four years earlier, but he’d died of a heart attack and not IN the house. I generally try not to be superstitious, but I went into the house and immediately felt a little uncomfortable. I blamed it on the fact that Drew and I had never really seen eye to eye, or that I felt bad for his mom who had been widowed so young and left with three children.

As sleeping space was limited, I got put down on a cot in the basement, along with another girl in my team. The basement wasn’t a creepy basement by any means; it had been refinished and was pretty comfortable. My cot was only about a foot from the wall and there was a small, old, digital clock between the wall and the cot. I fell asleep in my usual manner: facing the wall, back to the room.

At 2:48am (I’ll never forget the clock, since it was the only thing I could focus on) I woke up very suddenly. I was immediately frozen in bed, my heart was racing, my throat went tight and I couldn’t swallow. It was primal fear at it’s best. I couldn’t roll over to check but I swear, even now, that something was standing over me. EVERYTHING in my instinct told me NOT to turn around. It felt like my life depended on me staying right where I was. During this time of intense fear, I kept seeing images in my mind, flashes of gore and plain out horrible things. I could hear a laughing in my ears but not the voice of just one person laughing. It sounded like I was in a room with thousands of …things…laughing. I remember for the first time having suicide cross my mind during this overwhelming, fear driven time.

I should note that I am not and have never been suicidal.

When ‘The feeling’ went away, the last thing I remember hearing in my mind was, “Not this one.” I looked at the clock again and only nine minutes had passed. Longest fucking nine minutes of my life.

A few hours later when I got up, I decided I was going to get the hell out of there as quickly as I possibly could. I skipped a shower and breakfast and sat in the van waiting for the rest of my team. As I was waiting, Drew’s brother came out and spoke with me. He said one sentence. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you this morning.” As he said it, he had tears in his eyes. He honestly looked like he was going to be sick to me. The look of hopelessness in his eyes still haunts me.

Two weeks later, we got word that Drew’s brother killed himself just before 3am.

Ever since the incident, I still have dreams of the laughing. Part of me wonders if I would have just tried talking to his brother…maybe things would be different.

I’ve never spoke about this to anyone but my husband. It brings back a chill to my spine…and a sense of guilt. I don’t know what to make of it or what the hell really happened in that house. Part of me never wants to know.

TL;DR Stayed in a house where I had a creepy as fuck experience that compelled thoughts of murder and suicide. Two weeks later, the teenage son killed himself.

There's a possibility all of these stories are the result of drugs, mental illness, physical illness, stress, sleep paralysis, dreams, or natural phenomena misidentified. That all of these stories are the result of the story teller lying or exaggerating.
But out of all the hundreds of stories here there is also the very real possibility that perhaps one is the absolute truth, that one has no other possible explanation other than the supernatural.
The question is, which story is it and what would that suggest about the universe.